As a child, I read anything and everything, so I imagine I read all the Dr. Seuss books. Yet while I can clearly remember watching “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” (as I sat on the living room floor eating more than one slice of an especially moist yellow cake with chocolate icing), the Sam-I-Am stuff in Green Eggs and Ham and “One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish” are the only words I can recall.

That’s not to say that Theodore Geisel’s writing has not made a lasting impression upon me, though, only that it happened when I was an adult.

Not that long ago, I was searching for quotations to use in my language arts classes and came across “Don’t cry because it is over. Smile because it happened.”

An airy clarity came over me as I read Geisel’s words over and over, creating an almost electrical energy. I was understanding stuff. Important stuff. Important stuff about myself.

And my cognizance came not from reading Confucius, Aristotle, or Socrates, but a guy who wrote children’s books as Dr. Seuss. How weird is that? Or should I say how wonderful?

That’s because Geisel’s words resolved a love-hate relationship that had been brewing inside me over cycling.

To explain, let me address the love part first. While I love the physicality of the ride, that feeling of being totally spent after the tenth intense climb of a long ride, especially on a day when I thought five hard climbs would be my max, there’s far more to my love than that.

Succinctly stated, there’s simply something sublime about giving yourself totally to a daily grind. The legendary track-and-field coach Brutus Hamilton felt that way, too.

He said: “It is one of those strange ironies of this strange life that those who work the hardest, who subject themselves to the strictest discipline, who give up pleasurable things in order to achieve a goal, are the happiest men.”

I don’t believe that truer words were ever written, which is why feeling both love and hate relationship for cycling was so troubling to me. For a while, I wasn’t one of those “happiest men.”

Yet it wasn’t anything about hard work, discipline, or passing up pleasurable things that I began to loathe. It was feeling like a fraud because I knew I was no longer was what I once was.

Yes, yes, I know I’m soon to be 57 and that research shows all athletes inevitably decline well before that, but knowing and feeling don’t have to go hand-in-hand.

For years, I could ride at the front of a top-notch training ride known as the Derby, even toy with the group by attacking time and time again. Even on those Sundays when a handful of pros attended the ride, I could stay at the front — provided I was smart and did no attacking.

But then I started needing the same amount of smarts just to remain with the leading group when there were no pros about — and then there was a time or two when I couldn’t even do that. That’s when I began to hate the thought of riding 25 miles to meet a group that would callously remind me of something I didn’t want to be reminded of.

Part of what I was feeling, I believe, was expressed perfectly by Rabbit Angstrom in John Updike’s novel, Rabbit, Run. Angstrom, a former high school basketball legend, is now aimless, twenty-something, and struggling to find his way in the adult world.

“I once did something right,” he explains. “I played first-rate basketball. I really did. And after you’re first-rate at something, no matter what, it kind of takes the kick out of being second-rate.” For a while, I felt what Angstrom spoke. It tainted my rides — and my mental state.

While I still rode the scheduled workouts on their scheduled days, something was missing, something I found again when I read: “Don’t cry because it is over. Smile because it happened.”

It reminded me that nothing is guaranteed and that I had been blessed to ride at a high level for such a long time — far longer, I now realize, than I should’ve. So I started using the early part of my rides not only to warmup but also to recall the sorts of things that had happened on rides gone by that had made me smile.

Sometimes I focus on accomplishments, like winning a highly contested uphill time trial — five out of the eight years it existed — but mostly I remember the espirit de corps in the group rides in years gone by. How by trying to “hurt” each, we were really helping each other achieve more than just a high level of fitness.

So if there’s anything in your life causing any sort of hurt, I suggest you write down Geisel’s words, tape the paper to your bathroom mirror, and read it aloud each time you need to look into the mirror.